"Conversational" Codeswitching on Usenet and Internet Relay Chat

Abstract

This article examines the use of English, Hindi, and Punjabi in four Internet communication contexts that differ on the dimensions of ethnic homogeneity and synchronicity. The linguistic theory of codeswitching predicts that code-mixing of English and Hindi or English and Punjabi primarily only occur in ethnically homogenous and “conversational” contexts. Quantitative analysis of the four contexts supports this prediction and leads to the suggestion that synchronicity is an important part of what it means for a communication mode to be “conversational.”